Berliet T25/T30

The Berliet T25, renamed T30 in 1965, was the large off road dump truck that Berliet built from 1960 to 1974 and its best selling dumper, with 325 examples of the T25 and T30 made in 14 years. It began in 1958 as the T50, a vehicle of 45 to 50 tonnes gross weight and 3.80 m wide, powered only by Berliet 15 litre supercharged MDO 3S engine of 300 SAE horsepower, the most the maker had. The first prototype ran in 1959 and it was renamed T25 to follow the custom of naming the payload rather than the gross weight. Sold from December 1960 with a five speed Berliet gearbox, it gained an optional Allison automatic gearbox in early 1961, which raised the top speed from 50.0 to 58.1 km/h, and a Cummins NT 335 engine of 335 horsepower was offered at customers request. The first customer was the Union minière du Haut Katanga, which took two in May 1961. Berliet was trying to match the American dumpers of Euclid and International Harvester that dominated European quarries.